Pastoral Support

Mrs Ellis is our Pastoral and Inclusion Manager. She works closely with the school SENDco and also outside agencies to offer support and guidance to our families and staff.

Some of the ways Mrs Ellis might be able to help include:

pastoral work
advice on bereavement, friendship worries and anxiety
referral to food bank
applying for financial support for families such as household funding
supporting families with special educational needs assessments/support
supporting mental health and well being for pupils and staff

Mrs Ellis is on the gate most mornings, just pop and see her if you would like some pastoral support for your child.

SMILERS

As part of the SMILERS project, we are working with Derbyshire County Council on an approach that has been developed to support the wellbeing of the whole school community. It is based on the NHS 5 Ways to Wellbeing which is an evidence-based approach. The purpose of the project is to empower the whole school community to become architects of their own wellbeing within an enabling environment.

SMILERS is an acronym to help us remember the things we can do to improve our own mental health. This is for grown-ups, as well as for children.

Before we broke up for half term, Team SMILERS received their training with Mrs Ellis and Mrs Wright (from Derbyshire County Council) to become ambassadors of the project. They have been asking fellow pupils what they know about SMILERS in preparation for launching it this week.

Each half term Team SMILERS will be introducing what the acronym stands for and they are starting with:

S - STAY CONNECTED Having healthy relationships with people and pets to help you to feel happy.
M - MOVE Being active to release chemicals in your brain which boosts your mood and makes you feel good.

The principles of the approach are simple:

Building emotional resilience for all.
Promoting good mental health and wellbeing.
Developing coping strategies and skills for life.
and to involve the whole school community.

We have been developing our well-being offer for a few years now. One aspect we have done are the Park House Pals, who Reception pupils receive when they start attending their transition visits. SMILERS links to our iVenger programme and also Travel Smart. We felt that now was a good time to consolidate what we offer and build on it further.

To help build the S in Staying Connected and to compliment the M in Move, at playtimes we have some alternative activities being introduced. Weather permitting there will be small world, construction, mark making and malleable activities outside for pupils to engage with their peers over. You will spot black boards have popped up around the playground along with a giant four in a row game. Thank you to the Friends of Park House who have helped to fund these new activities. As we mentioned, this is a whole school community project. So to build on staff wellbeing, over October half term, we secretly revamped their staffroom!

There are three different levels we can work towards achieving - bronze, silver and gold.

Walter launched SMILERS in school and we now have Team SMILERS who are sharing each of the areas.